So how many copies do you have to sell to become a best seller? And how many authors achieve this?
Best Selling Books of 2007: Hardcover, Paperback, Childrens.
One person’s numbers for making #19 on the NY Times list.
The Times on making their list.
I’ve looked in the crystal ball I hide under my desk and caught a glimpse of what ebooks will change in the next few years. Specifically I saw what will happen to:
After showing me the vision, the ball thanked me for shopping at Walmart. Weird.
PRINT ONLY CONTRACTS
The only reason to have a print publisher is to get distribution you cannot obtain on your own, or to get it more cheaply than it would cost you if you tried to get it on your own. That’s it. Now, it’s true publishers have excellent art departments and story editors. But you can contract out cover art, copy editing, formatting, and even story editing yourself.
Distribution is the main thing publishers offer that you can’t get anywhere else.
BTW, when I’m talking about distribution, I’m talking mostly about getting the books out to places people can see and purchase them. For example, publishers can get your book into hundreds or thousands of books stores all at the same time–Barnes & Noble, Hastings, Walmart, Costco, indie book stores, airport book stores, grocery stores, drug stores, etc. Publishers can get you display in those stores so consumers see your book. One form of that are the racks and new book displays. Another is one that Scholastic does so well, i.e. displaying and selling titles in tens of thousands of classrooms with its book catalogs. A single author just can’t do that.
It’s also true publishers can convince some platform venues, that would never look at a self-pubbed author, to spotlight your book. For example, it’s unlikely a self-published author will be able to convince Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, which have huge platform for library book purchasers, to review a book. But publishers have no problem getting their stuff in there. Likewise, it’s often much easier for publishers to get endorsements from other authors or people with platform than it is for a single author. Of course, there are so many places that have some kind of platform, that publishers don’t have a lock on them all, e.g. Goodreads and Amazon reader reviews. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s just look at the distribution end.
Because 90% of book sales are still hardcopy, the only way to have HUGE sales numbers, right now, is through a print publisher. I’m talking about the numbers you see in the Publishers Weekly top selling books, where you have to sell at least 100k copies in hard back, 500k copies in mass market, to even make the list.
Publisher’s lock on this ability will erode. We can see signs of this in the USA Today Top 150 already. I consider this to be the most accurate picture of what truly is selling the most. Here’s why. And ebooks are starting to be the best selling format for a number of books. On that list, they add up sales of a title in all formats and then list the best-selling format. So when you see an (E) at the end of the listing, you know it’s selling more ebooks than any other format. E’s are starting to pop up all over and we’re still in the early adopter stage for ebooks and ereaders.
So what does this mean?
If I put on my author business slacks (why does it always have to be hats we change?), I’d be crazy to turn down a publisher that wanted to offer me monster distribution. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You offer me $500k now, I’m taking the money and running all the way to the bank and then the $6.99 Indian all-you-can-eat buffet.
Of course, I’m not likely to get that kind of an offer. We new writers are more likely to get an offer for, what were Hines’ numbers? $6k – $12k? And for that the publisher will want all our ebook rights and will tie them up for years and years and years. And then they’ll try to give us a fraction of what we could get selling directly. Furthermore, they don’t provide such books the same push to garner platform spotlight. They don’t spend the money to give them the prime display in bookstores. This means the difference between what they bring to the table for us smaller authors and what we can do on our own is much less. And the ebook has narrowed that even further.
How much further? Well, how many books would you have to sell to make that advance of $6k – $12k? If you’re selling your books for $2.99 for the Kindle, you get about $2.00 a book. That means you’d have to sell 3k-6k copies of an ebook to earn as much as that average advance.
Do you think you can sell 3k – 6k copies of an ebook at $2.99?
Some authors will be able to do this. Some won’t. If you wanted to do that in three years, you’d have to sell about 150-350 books per month. For a more in depth comparison between traditional publishing and self-publshing ebooks, see Dean Smith’s blog on cash flow.
Maybe you don’t think you can make those numbers. But maybe you can. The point is that if you think you can, then you can make as much on your own as you can with a publisher. This means there is absolutely no financial reason on earth to take the publisher’s deal. None. Now, if you have non-financial reasons, that’s another thing, but when looking at dollars and cents, it’s fairly clear the publisher’s ability to put you into their distribution channels isn’t worth what it will cost you. Especially since the ebook is forever and may keep selling for years to come AND because the market for ebooks is still in the early adopter phase–it’s only going to grow massively over these next years.
But this doesn’t mean paper publishing is dead. It’s not. Nor will it be for some time. Just because SOME authors can make as much in the ebook market on their own as they can with a publisher through their distribution channels doesn’t mean all of them can. Furthermore, publishers with distribution have something to offer even those who successfully publish ebooks themselves.
Let’s say you have an ebook series that starts to sell well for you, 1,000 per month. That’s $2k per month, $24k per year. If a publisher wanted to buy the rights to that from me, they would have to pay me MORE than $70k as an advance. MORE. Because I can make that on my own in three years selling it myself. In fact, since ebooks are forever, I have to look at the present value of all of those years of sales. That income stream is going to be a LOT MORE than $70k, even if we think sales will taper off after five or six years.
How many big publishers are going to want to pay that?
Probably none. Or, at least, I suspect those deals will be few and far between. But there is money to be made in paper, even if that market is shrinking. There will be some smaller publishers who, for the right price, will offer paper distribution. And if they can get me distribution that I couldn’t get myself for paper, or do it at a lower cost, then I’d want to sell them paper rights. Why not?
And so what I see in the crystal ball are some authors, the ones who do well selling ebooks, being able to sign contracts with publishers that sell paper rights only. I know the big publishers probably won’t go for that in the near term, but smaller publishers will see the value and step up to the plate.
AGENTS
What about agents? Are they going to die?
I think if we remember that literary agents are SALES agents, then their future becomes clear. The only reason to get a sales agent is because doing so makes my property worth more (same reason for getting a publisher, btw). If, by letting them focus on sales and letting me focus on getting more product out the door, I make more money than I would if I tried to do BOTH the selling and the producing, then I want an agent.
I want to sell as many rights as I can to as many people as possible–gaming, film, audio, foreign, merchandise, etc. I’d be a fool to say, well, no, I’ve got this little ebook gig going. I’m not going to sell any of these many other rights to anybody. No, I’m just going to let them sit in my basket and earn me nothing. Let them go to waste.
!?
A good agent should be able to sell more than I could on my own because they have a better ability to reach AND close editors AND other people that are in the market for purchasing rights to my property. They’ll also allow me to sell more because all the time I would have spent selling, I can now use to create more product. So not only do I have more books, and therefore rights, to sell, I can hopefully sell them for a better price and terms than I could on my own.
I’d be a fool not to increase my revenue. I’d be a fool not to have a good agent.
So as long as there are people who want to purchase these non-ebook rights, and an agent can make a sale I couldn’t or can make it for less than what it would cost me to do it on my own, then agents will be useful. Because of this, because we’ll always have more than ebook rights to sell, I don’t see a role for good agents ever going away.
EBOOK AGGREGATORS & LIBRARIES
When more and more people begin reading ebooks what happens to the libraries?
Ebooks cost less. So a lower price per book would simply allow libraries to purchase more books and expand the collection. But wait, they don’t need rooms and rooms to hold all the paper. You can store the world’s library in one computer room. Shoot, this means that housing the collection on a server instead of on the shelves would cost less. This would allow for an even bigger collection. But why maintain a server and manage your own collection if you can network to the collection down the road?
In fact, what if there were a mega service with millions of titles you could subscribe to? That would be even cheaper. Then you wouldn’t have to pay book purchasing agents or IT folks to keep your server running.
Enter the ebook aggregators–the Netflixes of ebooks (I know somebody somewhere is working on this business plan; is it you?)
I’m betting the whole library system goes national. I’m betting you’ll have some government aggregators, but they’ll probably be dwarfed by the private companies. You’d subscribe to the aggregator’s service just as you do Netflix today and many university libraries currently subscribe to electronic periodical collections.
The aggregators will probably charge users as Netflix does for a certain number of books checked out at the same time. If a large entity like a library wanted to subscribe, I bet the aggregator would charge access to the collection based on number of users at the library. The library would pass some of that fee onto patrons. The rest of the fee would be paid by the community’s tax dollars, just as those tax dollars pay for the current collections. You might even have device manufacturers coupling subscriptions with purchase of the product as incentives to buy their devices.
When the aggregators step in, we suddenly end up with a different mix of distribution channels that will coexist:
Surprised by #5? Well, the current distribution channels are not going away until every book can be read on an ereader and everyone who reads has and wants to read on such a device. That’s going to take some time, if it happens at all.
Why would readers buy individual titles ala distribution channel 1 above? Some people just want to own. Other readers will be happy to purchase the books because they don’t want to wait for a checkout slot to open up, e.g. I already have my allotted number of books checked out and I really want this one on hand all the time because it’s Suzie’s favorite. Other readers will want to customize a book with highlights, margin notes, links, etc. just as many of us like to mark up paper texts. We’ll need our own copy for that. Still, I think the bulk of reading will move to the subscriptions. For example, right now I purchase DVDs I love, even though I can get them from Netflix. But the number of DVD’s I own are a fraction of those I watch. Most TV and film I watch once and it goes back to Netflix until I want to see it again. And this checking out becomes even easier where there’s nothing physical to send through the mail.
Please note: there will probably be some form of gatekeeping with the aggregators. I doubt they will carry every scrap of anything ever written. They’ll carry a lot of stuff, but not every written word. Furthermore, when you have hundreds of thousands of titles, you’ll need mechanisms for helping your subscribers find great content suited to their tastes. A lot of “people who read this read that,” review services, etc.–the next generation of Netflix recommendations, Goodreads reviews, and Pandora like tools.
Aggregators won’t be the only gatekeepers, however. The key is in getting notice. And there will be many places with platform that will be able to shine a spotlight on a book. Think about all the places you find out about movies today—radio movie programs, TV movie reviews, Rotten Tomatoes, Newspaper Reviews, Yahoo viewer and critic review summaries, Kids-in-mind, and on and on. Look at all the ways you find music. There will be just as many ways to find books.
As far as paying authors, I suspect aggregators will pay authors each time a book is checked out, or, if it’s a must-have name author, they will pay to list the title plus a per use payment.
So that’s the future I saw in my strange little ball. Feel free to comment or add your own thoughts.
I finished the next chapter of my outline, which turned into three chapters. Hurray for making progress. However, I’m going to need to make more time on a weekly basis if I’m going to meet my goal.
I’ve kept stats over the last four novels. My average is 500 words per hour during the drafting stage. That includes revising and doing quick researches etc. So sometimes I will write a smoking (for me) 800 or 900 words per hour. Sometimes I won’t finish a thing. When I’m all done it averages out to 500 words. I’m going to see if I can’t get 20 hours this next week and finish 10,000 words.
Do you remember last week’s post about the process of making it come alive in my mind first? Orson Card illustrates this as he describes how he prepared to write a story in his essay “How One Story Can Give Birth to Another“.
Last week when writing chapter 7, I finished, but felt something was off. Years ago I would have freaked about writer’s block. I would have told myself I sucked because the chapter was glucky. But not now. It’s a gift. So I stopped and talked to myself in a freewrite. I had farmers faith that if I just kept working on it, something good would result.
Here’s what I wrote in that freewrite. It’s an awful read for you, but it shows you just how sloppy and cryptic and freewheeling my freewrites are.
Okay, so I’ve written the stuff below and I could tweak it, I guess. But I keep having this nagging feeling that it’s not good. It’s not a compelling villain. I think he’s creepy and evil. And, truth be told, I don’t want to make him into something other than what he is—a total thrall to the Glory and the mother. So as the “pet” of the mother, what else could he be called? I don’t know.
I shall call you endless because you will be spared, you shall continue, whereas the rest will not. Blessing. Blessed. Grateful. What would you call a thing that did you bidding reliably? But enthralled. I am part of you, you are part of me, and so you may take my name.
He WOULD think—I am not like them. I am GRACED by the Mother’s touch. I have taken her into myself. Or she has graced me and so I have become more than I would be otherwise. I am obedient.
What else do you call pets or tools. Maybe that’s what she calls him. My skir master. The skir lord. My trowel. Harvester.
He’s over the harvest. Reaper. Or he’s the one that supplies food. Supplier. Gatherer. Cook. Chef. Hunter. Provider. Butcher. Slaughter.
So I like Endless with the whole part of him being part of her. But he could use that—”you’re just like us” “no, we are part of the XXX (what was the name I had for them?) endless. You are meat”
Devourers, Mothers, Sublimes
Okay, so do I go with Endless or Harvest Hope. Endless it odd, neat. What could I add to Harvest to do the same. Harvest Lord, King, Overseer, Meatman, Food provider, Feeder, Harvester, Harvest, Rancher, Collector, The Harvester. Harvest.
I think when you’re raised, you get a new name.
Rebellion.
Soul collector.
The Shepherd.
Harvest Prime
Bald Head
Laughter
Everlast
DIVINES
ID HIM AS THE MAIN HARVESTER
RIGHTEOUS ANGER
The issue was that his motive wasn’t working. I had a feel for what I wanted him to be, and my Spideysense was telling me it wasn’t working, wasn’t interesting. Thomas McCormack in his book calls this feeling for what you want in your story a “prelibation”. What an odd term. But it’s real.
“Prelibation. The desire for a certain effect on the reader. It may or may not be followed instantly by an intuition of what item of narrative will cause that effect, and it’s important to see that intuition and the prelibation it is trying to serve are not the same thing. The intuiting of the narrative that will produce the effect-wanted is the work of the imagination” (p153 The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist)
There’s more in his book. I recommend it highly. So, after that freewrite, I didn’t have a solution, but I’d pinpointed the issue, the prelibation. I took a break with kids into the big city. Came back and had my solution for a narrative that would do the trick. Luckily, it was something I’d cut out of the outline. Back it went with some significant tweaks and was better than before.
For those who have read my series on suspense, at this point, the presentation of the problem for the main story and many of my sub-stories is complete. Depending on how you categorize them, I have nine to eleven story lines (which makes it impossible to write this book in 100k words). There’s one main story line that touches everyone—the Mokaddian threat. Then there are other questions and issues I raise that set the reader up with the expectation for a resolution.
So most of these story lines have been presented, although not all. It took about 30,000 words to finish the presentation phase. I’m estimating 170,000 words, so that a presentation phase of roughly 18%.
There are a lot of story lines and characters to juggle. Sometimes I kick myself for having so many. Of course, I love them, despite the challenge they present. Nevertheless, I AM looking forward to writing that thriller with a limited cast.
I value accurate reports from readers who are (a) in the audience for my books and (b) approach the book as honest readers, not critics, nigglers, axe grinders, toadies, or flatterers. I just want accuracy. In How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, Orson Card calls these types of folks “wise readers.” When I find one, I cheer because not every reader has time, ability, or interest. And their reports are usually very helpful.
I know a lot of aspiring authors ask friends and family to read their work. And I know that many people can easily become wise readers with a little direction. So I thought I’d share with you what I ask of my wise readers. Maybe you’ll find it useful with yours. Here’s a revised version of a letter I just sent to one who has agreed to read draft 3 of CURSE. Every author’s a bit different in how they approach readers. Some just say, read it and tell me what you like and what you don’t. But I like to provide a bit more guidance. And I wanted to make sure this reader understood exactly what I was looking for. It might be a bit much for some, but I wanted to make sure it was clear since this was his first time reading a full book for me.
Thanks so much for agreeing to read this draft! What I want at this point is to see how I’m managing the reader experience in 3 areas: (a) the characters, (b) each chapter and scene, and (c) with the book as a whole. So I’m hoping you just read, and as you go along make quick marks or comments when you’re delighted or bumped. I’ve listed the types of delights and bumps I’m talking about below. Please know I’m not providing them for you to use as a checklist, i.e. it’s not my intent to have you actively search for these things like a Where’s Waldo. You may feel some of these things. You may not. I just want you to be aware of them in the back of your mind as you read and to note when you experience them. In the end, I simply want an accurate report of YOUR experience. Accuracy is key to me.
I find with my own reading that it’s often hard to respond to the story as a regular reader if I’m always stopping to write lots of detailed comments. It seems to knock me out of the reader’s trance. So don’t feel like you must stop at the end of each chapter to assess your experience or be exhaustive in detailing your every reaction. Just make your quick marks and comments as you go, then review and write up your report when you’re done. If you feel the book’s too big to do it all at the end and actually remember what your marks and comments meant, then break it up into chunks of 100 pages or every few chapters. Whatever works for you.
Sometimes, despite our best wishes, we are just not in the audience for a specific book. If the book just isn’t working for you, do not read past the point where you would normally put it down. Pushing yourself beyond that point will only drive you nuts, and it won’t provide me with anything useful. So just stop there, be happy, and write your report. Remember: the most useful thing to me is accuracy.
As for the report, give me a summary of your general and specific reactions. For comments on specific parts or lines, it’s critical for me to know page numbers so I can go back and see exactly which part you’re talking about. Write your explanations on the specific page of the manuscript. They don’t need to be long. For example, if a page introduces too many names and you couldn’t keep track of the people and started to get confused, you might underline all their names and write “huh? too many names, can’t keep track.” If a character does something that makes you cheer, you could circle the paragraph and write “yes! yes! yes! Go Talen.” Just so that it’s clear to me what your reaction is and what your reacting to.
Please know whatever your reactions are, they are just as valid as anyone else’s. It’s my job to review all the reports and decide what they mean and whether they indicate I need to make any changes. Whatever I decide, know that it means a lot to me that you took the time to read and report with accuracy.
So, any of the following types of things count as bumps and delights. You might have others you experience as you read. Feel free to mark and comment for them as well.
DELIGHTS
I want to know what IS working with the characters, scenes, chapters, and plot as a whole. So any parts–story, people, or things–that elicit a strong reaction of the type you see below.Characters
- You really like or enjoy them
- Intrigued or fascinated by them, want to know more
- Great lines
- Envy them or think, oh man, that would be so cool to be able to do that or be there or have that skill/ability
- Sympathize with, root for
- Dislike, hate, root against
Story
- Suspense, anxiety, stress, dilemma
- Curiosity
- Mystery
- Surprise
- Cool!
- Wonder or awe
- Insight, poignancy
- Sadness
- Triumph, stand up and cheer moments
- Laffs or grins
- Dread, horror
- Great action, stunts, adventure
- Romance
- Compelling “Dude!” chapter or scene beginnings, ends, and story turns
Text
- Vivid descriptions
- Poetic beauty in the prose
Overall
- Did the story build well for you, bang bang in the climax, and then leave you wanting to linger and enjoy the rolling credits? Did it leave you feeling “wow” or “that was great?” If it didn’t quite make it, then give me an indication of how much on a scale of 1 – 10
- What were the most interesting parts of the story for you?
- Did you feel resolution and a strong tug to read more, come back to the world?
BUMPS
“Huh?”
- It’s not clear what’s going on, who’s doing it, or why.
- You really don’t understand something and you think you’re supposed to.
- Too many terms, names, etc. and you’re getting lost or feel like you need a diagram.
- The text itself doesn’t make sense, or it clunks badly.
- The book contradicts itself.
“Come on!”
- Something just doesn’t ring true.
- It’s just not how things work, e.g. John, there was no FBI in 1638 in China.
- The character’s actions don’t feel logical given the situation, e.g. um, why would she do that? I’d just X and, boom, it would be over. She was stupid.
- You just don’t buy some plot turn. It doesn’t make sense. Was too easy. Seems to ignore all sorts of things in the story.
- A character is irritating or annoying you.
“Yawn” or “What, that’s it?!”
- Things are starting to get boring.
- You start to skim the blah blah blah to get to the good stuff.
- You were built up to expect something and instead got a fizzle. This could be some mystery, a character, an insight, conflict, the ending, etc.
Please note that this list might change depending on the type of story I write. And the reader. For example, if I wanted a content or technical expert to report, then I’d be asking him or her:
If the book was focused more on a romance, then I’d probably provide a slightly different list of delights. Horror would require yet a different version. Not too different. But the emphasis would probably be elsewhere. The key is in me knowing the type of experience (entertainment & drama) I’m trying to provide, what I’m trying to test, and giving the wise reader enough examples that they know what I mean by “delights” and “bumps.”
EDIT: 11/27/12
And here are the Beta Reader Instructions I gave to the latest batch of noble souls who offered to beta read BAD PENNY.
Let me explain what I need you to do as a beta reader. This is basically a test screening. All I’m looking for is to have you give the novel a test ride, and then report back your experience. I’m not talking about giving feedback on small stuff like grammar and spelling. I’m talking about reporting your experience with the big story things like characters and plot.
For plot, you simply report chapter by chapter if you were still interested and wanted to keep reading or if the story started to become a bit long (yawn). Were there any parts that stood out to you as particularly interesting, funny, heart-pounding, or suspenseful? Any that stood out as a bit dull or didn’t ring true? Was the ending satisfying? Did the beginning grab your interest? Anything you were uncomfortable with? There’s no wrong answer. It’s just a report of your experience. And an ACCURATE report is what I’m after.
For characters, you report what you felt towards the main characters and any bit characters that stood out to you. Who was funny? Who was likeable? Who were you rooting for? Who did you hate or fear or mistrust? Were there any characters who are just so dumb or annoying you wanted to smack them? Where there any character moments that didn’t ring true or stood out to you as particularly entertaining?
Please remember: I want you to read only what you have time for AND interest in reading. If that’s one chapter, bully. Five, excellent. The whole thing, awesome. If you get a few chapters in and find it’s just not your type of story, that’s not a problem. Don’t read another word. Knowing that is helpful information as well. YOU determine the length of your test ride. I value whatever input you have to give.
I’m hoping to get all responses back by November 1. So send whatever you have by then. Also because I will be shopping this to publishers, I must ask that you not copy, share, or distribute the manuscript in any way without my written permission.
If I was looking for expert fact checking from one of the individuals, as opposed to a general story report, I’d add somethhing like this on the front.
Let me explain what I need you to do. This is basically a test screening. All I’m looking for is to have you give the novel a test ride, and then tell me where it doesn’t ring true with your experience with [enter expertise] or where I’ve missed a detail that might be cool. Chapters 9-10 and probably 22-24 are the ones where your expertise with [enter expertise] would come in.
If you think you’d like to provide input as a reader on the story as well, I would welcome that. I’m not talking about giving feedback on small stuff like grammar and spelling. I’m talking about reporting your experience with big story things like characters and plot . . .
I’m hugely grateful to my beta readers. Some are shy about giving their report. Some aren’t. Either way I usually ask some clarification questions and then save all the gold they just gave me to use in my final draft.
Okay, I lied. I was going to get into idea generation techniques, but decided to do one more short post on development objectives. Actually, I suppose this is a technique.
In the last post, I said one of the main objectives of your initial story development is to have the story to come to life in your mind. I explained that the best method I’ve come across up to this point for making that happen was to focus on developing the 6 core parts. Then I explained in general what I’m shooting for when developing those parts at the outset of a new project.
You can use a number of different types of documents to capture your thoughts on those 6 core parts. You might end up with a rough two-page sketch of the story. You might write brief character bios of some sort. You might bullet the general steps of the plot. Maybe you create a map. There are a lot of types of documents you can use to capture what you’ve developed. And often the creation of those documents not only captures what you’ve developed, but helps you develop the parts in the first place.
I want to suggest a “document” that will help you capture and develop the essence of your story setup.
This is ONE tool. It is not THE tool. There are many ways to capture the essence of your story. There are many tools that can help you clarify your thinking. But I think this is a good one because it forces you to get right to the core of your story and clarify it in a compact manner.
An idea that’s core and compact has great power because it focuses the mind.
There are so many things to juggle when writing a story that it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. I’ve found I become so much more productive when I know the core situation that’s driving the story.
There are a lot of things that drive reader and author interest. There might be a thematic question, fascinating characters, genre stuff (chase scenes, romantic scenes, scare the soup out of you scenes), humor. One of the main things that rivet readers to the page are the hopes and fears they have for our characters.
A reader’s hopes and fears are driven by presenting:
That’s the core of the story setup. As David Howard puts it: “there is one basic dramatic circumstance: somebody wants something badly and is having difficulty getting it.”
Of course, stories provide a lot of delights that require you to do more than define the person and the thing they want. But the setup is at the heart of a lot of what readers go to story for. Part of the initial development of a story should focus on helping you clarify this central dramatic situation.
So here’s a tool to help you do that. I read about it years ago in Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, which was written in 1965. Swain calls it the “Starting Line-up.” I read about another version of the same thing more recently in Dan Decker’s Anatomy of a Screenplay written in 1998. He calls it the “Story Line.” The hugely published romance writer Leigh Michaels calls it a “Framework” in her On Writing Romance: how to craft a novel that sells. The agent Donald Maass calls it the “premise of a novel” in an interview published in Agents, Editors, and You by Michelle Howry. Jim Butcher calls it a “Story Skeleton.” Let’s look at each of these variations.
Swain asks you to include five elements:
These are to be cast into two sentences.
Here are his examples.
John Storm
Sentence One
- When humans suddenly begin to grow to twelve-foot height [situation],
- John Storm [character]
- tries to find out why [objective].
Sentence Two
- But can he defeat the traitors in high places [opposition]
- who want to kill him [threatening disaster] in order to make the change appear to be the result of an extraterrestrial plot?
Irene Boone
Sentence One
- Lonely, frustrated, and tired of living in a home where she’s treated as an unpaid servant [situation],
- widowed Irene Boone [character]
- wants to marry widower Frank Dawes [objective].
Sentence Two
- Will she lose this chance for happiness [threatening disaster]
- because her selfish sanctimonious daughter, Connie [opponent] accuses her of immorality?
Dale Boulton
Sentence One
- Sick of the conformity and hypocrisy that go with his highpaid job, and with a modest life income assured [situation],
- Dale Boulton [character]
- decides to retire ten years early, to go live on a shanty-boat and poke through crumbling river ghost-towns, in fulfillment of a boyhood dream [objective].
Sentence Two
- Can he make the break successfully, when his hostile wife, Sandra [opponent],
- fights him all the way and, finally, threatens to have him declared incompetent [threatening disaster]?
Decker requires three components:
You can add other components—other characters described by an adjective or other important events or decisions. He prefers you start with a “when.”
Here’s an example.
When a booksmart savings and loan bailout accountant takes over the business he is assigned, he discovers it is a bordello and teams up with the Madame using his business skills to fend off a hostile take over and save the business.
Another.
When a blood thirsty killer and his gang are coming to kill him, a strong-willed, decent cop must fight them over the objections of his pacifist bride who will leave him if he does.
Another.
When he is given a factory full of doomed Jewish workers, a greedy, opportunistic Nazi deceives his taskmasters to save them.
Another.
After a tornado carries her off to a strange land, a spunky teenaged girl must face a series of challenges to get home.
More.
When his blundering uncle throws their building and loan company into insolvency, a despairing small town banker with low self-esteem has to find a way to save the bank.
Michaels suggests four elements in her framework, although she doesn’t stipulate a specific form.
This definition summarizes the four crucial basics that make up a romance novel:
- A hero and heroine to fall in love
- A problem that creates conflict and tension between them and threatens to keep them apart
- A developing love that is so special it comes about only once in a lifetime
- A resolution in which the problem is solved and the couple is united
She then lists a number of questions to help an author think about those four elements. The document that could capture this is a summary of the answers to those questions.
Donald Maass was asked what he looks for in a query or pitch. Like Michaels, he doesn’t specify a form, but does include some basic elements.
I’ll tell you exactly what I need, and I can get this information after just a few questions.
First of all: What type of novel are we dealing with here? Mystery? Mainstream? Young adult?
Second thing: Where and when is it set? Contemporary? Historical? Magical place? A real place?
Third: Who is the main character?
And lastly: What is the basic problem that the character faces?
Those things wrapped up together are the premise of a novel, and I know right away if it’s the kind of work I handle, if the idea sounds original, if the main character is sympathetic, and whether I care about the problem. That’s all i need. If all those things are a go, then I want to read the work. It’s as simple as that.
Most authors might perceive this as additional pressure. It’s exactly the opposite. What is means is that their job is much, much easier than they think.
If you think about a query, this is something that should be contained in a few short paragraphs.
A reader drew my attention to a short essay Jim Butcher wrote on this subject. I thought it was excellent. Here’s Butcher:
The story skeleton is a description of the main plot of your book, broken down into its simplest elements. . . The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
For instance, look at Storm Front. (Yes, I’ll use my own books as examples, because I’m just that way. 😉 Also, I’m more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.) Storm Front’s story question:
****************************
When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago, wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer. But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard, a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police Department?
****************************See! It’s oh-so-simple! Almost to the point of looking ridiculous–and I have no doubt that some of the people reading this article will think that it *is* ridiculous. They’re wrong. 🙂 This is a fundamental description of the core conflict in your tale–and stories are all about conflict.
Go read his whole essay.
Did you notice any similarities in the examples above? Character, inciting event, problem, goal, opposition. Let’s go back to the core of story I listed.
Written even more succinctly:
I like the idea from Swain and Butcher of projecting us forward using a question. I like the idea from Decker and Butcher to use “when” to state the inciting incident. I also like adding in the character adjectives. I like Michael’s and Maass’ focus on problem. But I also like flexibility. My version uses key elements of the others as guidelines, keeping it simple and core by limiting the statement to 90 words.
Here’s one for The Incredibles.
Bob is a frustrated retired superhero, living a boring life as an insurance claim processor. When he gets an offer to do illegal superhero work on the sly, he decides to take it and pursue a double life, even though he’s forced to lie to his wife about it. But his dream job employer is actually trying to settle and old score and kill him. Will he lose his family when he’s drawn into a showdown with a super villain that has him outmatched?
In many longer works there are often more than one story running. Sometimes the main character has an external conflict and an internal one. Or maybe a related subplot. Sometimes other characters have related B, C, D, and E story lines. In Curse of a Dark God, for example, I have at least eight story lines that I have to braid into each other. To keep them all straight, I found it very helpful to list out the five elements for each. The goal isn’t to make these into slick marketing tools: they’re to help me focus my efforts. However, I find that when they include all the elements, they have great power to pique my interest.
Here’s one of the “inner” conflicts of Curse.
Talen has escaped the clutches of the Mother, but something is growing inside of him. When he begins to hunger after the Fire and soul of those around him, he realizes he’s not all human. Will he be able to resist the growing and overpowering desires, or will he become the very thing he’s fighting against?
Here’s one of the related “outer” conflicts.
The Mother of Mokad wants Talen—to make him into a thrall or devour him. He escapes the first attempt to capture him, but will he be able to shake the Mother’s powerful hunter and his dreadmen now that he and his sister are on their own?
Here’s a third story line in the book, the big external plot.
Argoth is trying to build up an army of sleth that can free mankind. But the Mother of Mokad sends her Guardian to exterminate every last one of them. Will Argoth be able to defeat Mokad’s vastly superior army, especially when the Guardian has infiltrated his ranks?
But Argoth has another plot line for the reader to worry about.
Argoth damaged his son. Nettle’s condition is growing worse. A foreign Divine offers to heal Nettle in exchange for Argoth’s allegiance. Will Argoth betray those around him and save Nettle? Or will he let his son die and lose him to the perils in the world of the dead?
Here’s one of Sugar’s.
When Sugar sneaks behind enemy lines to retrieve some items her mother left for her, she’s given the opportunity to learn a powerful lore and use it to scout for Argoth’s army in the world of the dead. But each time she uses it, she comes closer and closer to death herself. Will she be able to survive as she’s asked to serve in more and more dangerous situations?
Here’s her inner conflict. I wanted to develop a moment of dilemma for her just as I did Argoth.
Sugar wants to keep her brother Legs safe. But as Mokad’s army arrives, it becomes apparent Argoth doesn’t have a chance. She and her brother might not survive. Sugar’s been learning the lore with a handsome and battle-hardy loremaster who saves lore users who have become true sleth. When he asks her to sail with him and his crew before it’s too late, Sugar has to decide if she will flee and abandon her friends or stay and fight and risk losing everything in this world and the next.
Now you see why it’s virtually impossible to write such a book with so many story lines in the normal 100,000 words. And why I question my sanity in trying to write it.
Anyway, there’s much more to writing a fascinating and compelling story than capturing a story setup, but I’ve found that working on stating the simple core of the story clarifies many things for me and makes me much more productive. I developed a short statement of all my story setups early on in the writing.
There are a number of ways to capture the story setup. Let me suggest you give one a try. And if you aren’t to the point where you have enough material to capture a story setup yet, that’s fine. That’s what development is for.
One last note. If you want to read an expanded description of how one writer develops story ideas, read Write Away by New York Times Bestselling author Elizabeth George. I loved the book.
Miss Snark was the pseudonym of an agent who I believe was Janet Reid of the JetReid Literary Agency. When she was incognito, Snark had a blog. On her blog she’d often invite people to submit their story statements used in queries to hook editors and agents to ask for more. These entries were called “Happy Hookers.” Snark would rate them on her crap-o-meter, sometimes giving comments and suggestions. Let me suggest you read 50 or 100 of those hooks.
As you’re reading, look at Mrs. Snark’s comments. But more importantly, note the hooks that excite you and the ones that don’t. Because, frankly, Snark is just one person with one person’s tastes. In this exercise, you’re not trying to figure out what she likes. You’re trying to see what story elements work for you. So don’t be dissuaded by her tastes. Identify the hooks that interest you and the ones that don’t. Ask yourself where they were unclear, unbelievable, or boring. After you’ve done a few, you’ll start to see story patterns and ways to capture your own story setup that will be useful to you.
For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas
Jennifer Nielsen is the author of Elliot and the Goblin War, the forthcoming Elliot and the Pixie Plot (Sourcebooks, August 2011), and The False Prince (Scholastic, April 2012). She’s also worked for many years with a troubled youth program. I recently sat in on one of her presentations on characters and personality at a writers conference and quickly found myself scribbling down insights. Later I convinced her to share some of that here. Enjoy. You can learn more about her at www.jennielsen.com.
In the Mockingjay series by Suzanne Collins, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen is selected as one of the contestants for the brutal Hunger Games held by the Capitol each year. Katniss is resourceful, fierce, intelligent, and compassionate. It is these traits she uses in her attempt to survive the Hunger Games. She is joined in the games arena by Peeta Mellark, who is clever, protective, and likable. Like Katniss, Peeta’s traits help him in his fight to survive.
These characters are excellent illustrations of the importance of character in a story. What if Suzanne Collins had not given Katniss her compassion? For those who have read the story, they know changing that single trait would have dramatically changed the plot.
It’s for this reason that character is so important in the creation of a story. If you change the plot, the character will remain the same. But if you change a character, the plot will inevitably change with it.
In order to create a believable human sketch, a visual artist would have to understand the physical body, muscle structure, proportions, etc. In a similar way, for a writer to create a believable character, he must understand the basic rules of personality.
But to create a believable characterization, there are some important things for the writer to understand about personality. Personality is the traits of a person’s core self. For example, there are many different types of people who value and practice honesty (the “trait”). But personality will determine how that trait is exhibited. An extrovert is far more likely to state the blunt truth while an introvert might create an opportunity for the people to discover the truth on their own. So although the trait is the same, there is no single way in which it might be expressed.
In other words, while the presence of a trait is important in developing character, the way it is expressed is equally important. A person’s stubbornness might be demonstrated as passive-aggressiveness or outward defiance. A person’s jealousy might be expressed in withdrawal or by vicious repercussions. It’s personality that determines the way character traits are expressed.
There are four important things to understand about personality. The better writers understand this, the better they can understand the characters they created.
#1 Personality is Stable. The core of who a person is remains about the same throughout a lifetime. The way a trait is expressed may evolve or adapt as the events of life unfold, but the core self doesn’t change much.
For example, a shy child may hide behind her mother’s legs and refuse to talk. As she grows into adulthood, she will probably learn to manage her shyness and interact in the world. But she will likely never be the outspoken, bold, center stage person.
#2 The Intensity of the Trait Matters. When creating character, most writers stop at listing the presence of a trait. However, that is rarely good enough because it’s really the intensity that matters. Someone who has a hard time forgiving others and holds grudges is probably fairly normal. But increase the intensity of the trait and you may create a villain who’ll go to extreme lengths for revenge.
#3 People Rarely Behave Out of Character. Occasionally, writers finds themselves in a position where in order to make the plot unfold the way they want it to, they must force their character into behaviors outside of anything they’d normally do. This almost always fails the believability test because in real life, people rarely act out of character.
Consider the example of the shy woman. Is it possible that she would willingly get up in front of a crowd and speak with boldness? Of course. But is it likely? No. It’s far more likely that she would find someone else to deliver the message for her, or find another way to communicate the message.
When I’m speaking about this issue to groups, a common response from writers who are facing writer’s block is that this is the root of their problem. They are trying to force a character into a behavior not consistent with their personality. The entire scene becomes forced as the character literally balks at the writer’s attempts.
#4 People Tend to Rework the Same Issues Throughout Life. Everyone has “issues.” Some are more major than others, of course, but we all have them. And whatever it is that we battle, we likely battle it throughout life, even if the way we experience that issue evolves.
For example, the teenager who becomes explosively angry is later the man who may take out his anger on his wife or children. In later life that trait may evolve so that he turns his anger inward and develops a drinking problem. Or perhaps the man matures and mellows. Perhaps he’s learned to manage it, or perhaps he’s too tired to create the same fuss as when he was younger.
In April 2012, I’ll release a series with Scholastic that begins with Book 1: The False Prince. The protagonist in this story is a defiant boy named Sage who must use his own cleverness, determination, and strength to survive a contest that will name the winner as the false heir to the throne.
As the writer of this series, it was important for me to understand Sage’s personality if I was going to create a believable character. One of his core traits is his instinct to rebel. It’s a more intense than would generally be found in his peers, so I needed to respect the fact that he would rarely back down from a fight, regardless of the consequences. There is one scene in the book where Sage steals an item from his master that Sage believes was stolen from him. He refuses to tell anyone where he hid it, even though he knows the consequences will be serious. I didn’t want those consequences to happen to Sage, but he would not have had things any other way. To attempt to create a story where he gave in to the master would have cheated the character, the story, and the reader.
Likewise, writers must understand that creating great characters begins with understanding the rules of personality. And when it’s done right, whether it’s Katniss Everdeen, or any of your favorite characters, the reader will always remember them.
*
JOHN SEZ: I particularly like #2 because homo-ficti need to be a little bit larger than life. A litter more courageous. A little more finicky. A little more skilled. A little more outrageous. Exaggeration is one of the key tools for developing characters.
The statements about the core part of personality being stable and long-lasting, and folks dealing with issues for a long time, are interesting to me as well. It seems like this is where deep motives lie.
Of course, I know I don’t start with personality grids when developing characters. But I do eventually try to peg my characters. I’ve found that having a dominant impression, a type, helps a great deal when working with them, even if my characters mix or bend the types. If I know that this one is a wise-cracking farmer, that one a quick-tempered tailor, and that one a no-nonsense baker, it makes them easier to work with. It makes it easier to envision how they might react in a given situation.
In fact, I think I’ve created my most enjoyable characters when I didn’t try to make them super complex. They might have had things that occured in their past that affected them greatly. They might be dealing with terrible dilemmas now. They might have a number of interesting details about them. But if I can peg them in my mind as this or that type of person, it seems the scenes flow more easily. I can improvise the dialogue and their reactions much better in my mind as I write.
Sometimes I can capture that type with a description, e.g. “scary smart farmer.” Sometimes it’s enough to get a voice or a photograph or link them to someone I know. Sometimes I’ve linked them to animals and that gave me the center. Very often they form as I write them. They often have to come on stage first and have me start writing them for everything to coalesce.
Check out Nielsen’s site. I love the first line of Goblin War. I mean not only does she get all these fab illustrations for her book, but then she opens it with this: “When he was 8 years old, Elliot Penster started an inter-species war. Don’t blame him. As anyone who has ever started an inter-species war will tell you, it’s not that difficult to do.” Elliot is trick-or-treating at the moment, everyone thinking he is dressed up as a hobo, when in reality he’s just wearning his normal day clothes. Hum. A little homo-fictus anyone?
All you Utah and mountain area writers & teachers, or those close enough to travel, I will be presenting and conducting workshops from 9:00 am until 4:30 pm this Saturday, Oct 9th as part of the Autumn Writers Conference sponsored by the American Fork Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The sessions I’ll conduct include:
There are four other tracks. Find all the details, including cost and contact info, on the organizer’s site: CalebWarnock.blogspot.com. I’m totally stoked for this. I’ll be sharing what I think are the Pareto factors in each of these areas — things I wish I would have known when I started and would have shaved years off my journey to publication.
A number of other authors will be there including:
